Clandestine cell phone transmission tower builders skulked back on the local scene last week, setting off a flurry of frantic phones calls from nervous neighbors that put Guadalajara Reporter staff, Chapala police and the city’s Regulations Department on high alert.
The fury started Wednesday, February 26 when several San Antonio resident expats notified the Reporter that workers were spotted constructing a tower base directly behind a local kindergarten.
All hell broke loose in the predawn hours of Saturday, March 1 when the callers from San Antonio and homeowners on Calle Amazonas in Rancho del Oro – where another tower project was detected last December – were rudely roused from sleep by the telltale sounds of men at work. Complaints were promptly phoned in to Chapala police headquarters. Patrols rushed to both locations where 15 men were detained and hauled off to the city jail.
Municipal judge Ricardo Martinez subsequently told the Reporter that he fined 13 of the workers 1,000 pesos each for the administrative offense of breaking or violating a closure seal. Two others, employees of a local towing company who were incidentally hired to transport tower parts, were released without penalty.
Martinez said the person who showed up to pay off the fines tried to bargain for a lower amount. “I told him he was already getting a deal because under Chapala’s current Income Law the corresponding fine runs the range from 1,715 to 7,070 pesos. And if his men get caught again they’ll be hit with the maximum.”